Find Me in the Club
by LaCorriveau
Summary: A short little story about Prince Dimande's hangout on Earth, the Roulette nightclub, and what happens when Usagi shows up one night.
1. Chapter 1

He wasn't sure what drew him back to the nightclub late in the evening. No one of his royal ancestry ought to be caught dead in a place like Roulette, where the city's youth was drawn every weekend like so many moths to a flashing, seedy flame. And yet, there he was.

Perhaps it was boredom that drove Dimande out of his base and into the underbelly of youth culture that first time. He was tired of waiting for people to report to him, because what they said never changed. Wiseman seemed full of unending reassurances and Saffir continued to spout off paranoia.

However, something pulled him back again and again. He settled into a routine; during that part of the week when Terrans took their breaks from work and school, he would materialize into an empty corner away from the seething dance floor. He liked to commandeer an out of the way table and quietly enjoy his alcohol while watching the Terran world dance by.

When he was at Roulette, he didn't have to be responsible for the mission to take over the Earth, his family members that had fallen in the fight, the fact that more deaths may come. The fact that his countrymen waited for him to give them the planet of sunshine and flowers. He could just let his mind go blank and enjoy his respite from duty. It was hard to remember that a whole planet of people depended on him when the bass was pounding so hard that Dimande thought his heart was jumping its own rhythm to match.

Dimande leaned back in his chair and took another sip from his drink. He liked to dress simply in Roulette; he had left behind his rich royal clothing, and opted for a plain white shirt and dark trousers. It was enough to make people believe that he belonged there without arousing their curiosity.

Bliss was anonymity, he decided, savoring the burn of alcohol on his tongue. He watched young, gleaming bodies move together with vague interest. The children of twentieth century Earth had turned dance into a sexual expression. They moved together, but disconnected. Strangers moved against strangers, all apparently lost in their own pleasure. Dancing with a partner had become an individual experience.

He toyed with the idea of dancing with one of the many unaccompanied young girls in the club. To be so close to something warm and nubile seemed like a pleasant way to avoid thinking about the reality of his existence. He stood and stretched, casually searching the mass of people for a suitable partner.

His eyes landed on her. The rest of the world dropped away.

Dimande didn't have to think about it; his feet started moving toward her the moment she crossed into his vision. He moved faster as she started attracting the eyes of Roulette's male patrons. He would be damned if someone scored his prize before he even reached her.

She looked a far cry from the virginal queen Dimande had known in the future. She wore a strapless violet silk dress that lovingly followed the curves of her body, before ending scandalously at her upper thighs. Her black high-heeled shoes provocatively reshaped her posture, accentuating the curve of her back and creating delicious tension in her calves. Her hair was out of its typical style, swept up into a knot of the back of her head, exposing a slender swan-neck and delicate shoulders.

She maintained beneath that provocative exterior that innocence that she had carried with her all the way into her future self. She almost looked like a child playing dress-up, unsure of what adult thing she was supposed to do now that she looked like one.

When Dimande was only steps away from her, she turned and started to walk toward the bar. Desperately, Dimande reached through the crowd and caught her hand. She whirled around at his touch. Her sweet blue eyes were rimmed with kohl, making them look doe-like and full of some exotic sadness that wasn't there before.

Surprise melted into recognition. Usagi tilted her head as she considered Dimande, probably wondering how she managed to run into her archenemy in the middle of a packed nightclub. As though she heard Dimande's inner prayers, she did not look afraid, she did not pull away. Her eyes searched his, though what she was looking for, Dimande did not know. The song changed, and Usagi looked past Dimande, toward the dance floor. Something bitter and angry passed over her face. She set her shoulders and stormed out into the center of the floor, Dimande in tow.

Usagi turned deftly and pressed her back to Dimande. They began to move with the bass, joining in the sexual playmaking with the other dancers. His trembling hands went to her hips; was this really happening, he wondered. Did fate send her to him, did fate let him find her in the middle of Roulette?

Dimande lost reality in the midst of the music and the warmth of the body pressed to his. If the entire universe ceased to exist but for the sound system and Usagi, he wouldn't have noticed. His dream was to rule over Earth and the solar system, but he would've given it away for an eternity of moving with Usagi in the middle of Roulette.

"You found me," he murmured into her ear, allowing his fingertips to drift past her hemline and brush against bare flesh.

"I wasn't looking for you," she replied pointedly, looking at Dimande over her shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Okay, I was kidding. I wanted to add a little more to this story, and there may be more updates in the future. As for the setting, I envisioned it after everyone returned from Crystal Tokyo for the first time, but later it occurred to me that Usagi and Mamoru had reconciled by then. So, we're just going to pretend that didn't happen yet :) While I wrote this, I was listening to Telephone, by Lady Gaga.

Usagi wasn't sure what to expect from her evening, but she certainly did not foresee herself dancing with her latest archenemy in the middle of a crowded nightclub.

It all started with a proposal and a rejection. That afternoon, Usagi had tracked down her beloved Mamoru at Motoki's arcade and asked brightly if he would be interested in a milkshake and a movie. Mamoru had stood up with a sigh.

"I have plans already," he said while throwing change on the counter for his soda. "Besides, milkshakes and movies are childish, aren't they?" That being said, he left Usagi standing by the counter, feeling deflated and childish. Believing Mamoru to have more grown up things to do, Usagi retreated shame-facedly, ignoring Motoki's sympathetic gaze, feeling much too immature for Mamoru's tastes.

She had been fine until she happened upon Mamoru an hour later, strolling down the street with another girl, both sipping from milkshakes.

Jealousy was an ugly feeling. So was anger.

Usagi tore into her room like a category five hurricane, completely lost in her fury at Mamoru and the rest of the world, the pleasure of slamming her door a little too fleeting. A plan began to form in her mind – not a great one – but she was so angry at the time, it didn't really seem to matter how half-baked her plan was. She started scrounging around her room for make-up and allowance money.

Earlier in the week, she had overheard two girls at her school talking about a club called Roulette; they had been proud that the bouncer had let them in without IDs, bragging about how hot they had dressed that night. They might as well be eighteen, they told each other, for how grown-up they could look.

Usagi was very aware that her wardrobe was perfectly suited to her age. Thus, she would need a new outfit, hopefully one that came with a new personality that she could shrug on with the clothes and show the world that she was not a child. Usagi grabbed her bag and headed back out to the shopping district, ducking her mother and brother on the way out with an excuse about going to Rei's.

Some purchases and a marathon make-up session in a public bathroom later, there she was, successful in convincing the bouncer that she was eighteen without identification, standing in the middle of a throbbing, pounding mess of a nightclub.

It was here that the plan fell apart; what did one do in a nightclub? Many people were drinking, but that was out of the question. Getting in without an ID was one thing, but trying to get a drink without proof of age was much more difficult. Usagi smoothed her hands over her dress, admiring the deep violet of the material. The color was so different from the pale, sweet colors she normally wore, and when she looked in the mirror in the store dressing room, she felt that the girl looking back at her was someone new, someone different.

Usagi noticed that there were stools grouped around the bar, so she moved in that direction, wanting to sit and figure out what she should do next.

That was when he found her.

Curiously, Usagi didn't feel fear when she saw him. She knew him instantly; even without his black crescent moon, the white prince's pallor, purple eyes, and white hair gave him away. His clothes were different now, simple black pants and a white buttoned shirt, which she thought suited him well. Usagi looked past Dimande, wondering what Mamoru might do if he saw in the middle of that club, dressed so provocatively, with the man who tried to force a kiss on her.

Before Usagi's head could process what she was feeling, she had dragged her enemy out on the dance floor, and started dancing with him as if she danced with men in nightclubs regularly. _Let him see me now_, she had thought angrily as they started to move together. _Let him see that I am wanted, that I am not a child, that I am not some little girl_.

And now his face was pressed into her neck and his hands splayed across her thighs, his fingertips grazing the skin where her dress ended. She smiled as she tipped her head back against Dimande's chest and closed her eyes. She realized why people liked going clubbing so much; the music, so loud it was disorienting, was numbing. Reality didn't seem to exist outside of the packed club and time seemed to stretch into an infinity of loud music and sweaty bodies. Mamoru's rejection fell away, with her anger and bitterness.

The bass thudded with a vengeance, the music scaled and fell, tripping along with its hypnotic melody.

They lost themselves.


End file.
